George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring to the attention of the House and of the government a new crisis unfolding for the sugar industry, in particular for growers in the electorate of Dawson. In what is likely to be a one-in-20-year or perhaps even a one-in-30-year weather event, there has been significant rainfall along the Dawson coastline, impacting on the sugar-growing communities of Mackay, Proserpine and the Whitsundays and the Burdekin. This rainfall has also impacted on the sugar-growing district of Herbert, which the member for Kennedy represents, and Sarina, Walkerston and the Pioneer Valley, which the member for Capricornia represents.

For the first time in a long time, 2010 was a year of opportunity for growers. For years and years, the industry has been through many adversities. They have been through drought, orange rust and the corrupt world market prices, they have beaten deregulation and they have beaten the cane smut disease. At the end of last year, with world prices in their favour, it seemed 2010 was going to be a good season for growers. But on Friday the mood of the industry was summed up at the AGM of Mackay Canegrowers by chairman Paul Schembri when he said:

The weather can make or break you, everyone in the value chain of the industry will suffer. It is very hard to see the fruits of your labour washed down the drain.

While growers are in receipt of some of the best world sugar prices, they have not been able to take advantage of the situation because they cannot marry-up the high prices with tonnage. High rainfall levels have near brought the harvest to a halt in all canegrowing areas in Dawson, with much of the crop unable to be cut or now so low in sugar content that it almost is not worth cutting out. In the Mackay region, which includes Walkerston and the Pioneer Valley, there are some 645,372 tonnes of cane left, while in Sarina there are 261,300 tonnes of cane left. The total value of cane that will probably have to be abandoned for the region is more than $36 million.

In Proserpine and the Whitsundays, there are 447,000 tonnes left and Proserpine Sugar has closed the harvest. The value of the crop left is almost $17 million. In the Burdekin the situation is much worse, with near one-third of the cane not yet harvested, and with wet weather continuing it seems unlikely to be harvested. Total tonnage of cane remaining uncut is 2.9 million tonnes at a value of $180 million to the mill and the grower. This sad situation comes on top of severe damage to the crop earlier in the year when Cyclone Ului crossed the coast near the Whitsundays. Due to Ului, growers in Proserpine sustained a near 10 per cent production loss attributed to cane loss and a five per cent productivity loss due to reduced sugar content.

In Mackay and Sarina, Ului’s impact meant that growers suffered a near five per cent production loss attributed to cane loss and a near five per cent productivity loss due to reduced sugar content. Some growers in Proserpine and the northern rural coast of Mackay were said to have lost more than 30 per cent of projected production due to Cyclone Ului. The combined loss estimate because of the cyclone was $52 million. Ului on its own was something the industry was able to withstand but, combined with severe and ongoing heavy rainfall since then, the situation is now diabolical for the industry.

Queensland Sugar Ltd, or QSL, contacted my office on Friday to report that while they were expecting to export 3.2 million tonnes this year they are now going to be lucky to meet 2.4 million tonnes. This is a reduction of 25 per cent and, according to QSL, it means more than $350 million worth of export revenues that would normally have flowed on to millers, growers and regional Queensland communities is down the drain. Particularly worrying for growers is that this has happened when forward pricing, which came about with the deregulation of the industry, is now widely used within the industry. Many growers have forward sold a portion of their 2010 crop and now face having to pay that back in some manner as the rainfall has made them unable to achieve the harvested crop that they could have had.

There are measures being mooted to help growers by taking the loss out of the income from next year’s crop, but the situation is looking grim there too. A lot of farmers had already planted their 2011 crop before the rainfall and most of this has now died. Next year’s crop will undoubtedly be impacted, probably with a lower sugar content due to a constrained growing time. I say this situation is diabolical as it threatens to send many farmers to the wall financially and I have had some anecdotal reports that some growers are on suicide watch because of the stress of the situation.

Today I have written to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Prime Minister asking them to visit one of the sugar-growing regions with a view to extending exceptional circumstances provisions immediately to growers who are impacted. I plead with the government to do what it can to help growers who have been floored again by this new setback.